In this Amy Goodman interviewwith Greg Palast, author of Armed Madhouse: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats, Bush Sinks, The Scheme to Steal '08, No Child’s Behind Left, and Other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War talks about how the Republican Party managed to disenfranchise huge numbers of black voters, many of whom were in Iraq fighting George Bush’s oil war. Palast, by setting up a fake website (Georgewbush.org) was able to receive Republican Party so-called “Cage Lists” of voters whose votes had been successfully challenged. The gyst is that GOP sent letters to the homes of soldiers stamped with “Do not forward”, and then when the letters were returned, used these to challenge the residences of these voters as inaccurate and have their votes thrown out.
Why didn’t they get busted for doing this? Pretty simple. In Palast’s words:
[quote]Because the cops, the voting cops in the United States are in the U.S. Justice Department, and at the time, 2004, the voting cop was John Ashcroft. You know, George Bush’s guy, and now we have Gonzales.
I mean, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, called, by the way, for a criminal investigation when I began showing this evidence. I don’t give them my sources, but I do give them the public evidence, with the BBC’s approval. You’ll see it in the book. They did vote for criminal investigations. This never got reported in America. The reaction of the Justice Department was to completely ignore the demand for a criminal investigation, and George Bush fired every member of the Civil Rights Commission that voted for the criminal investigation. Do you like that?
[/quote]
I guess it’s no mystery that the GOP policies have been aimed at keeping blacks from voting. They pulled this crap in 2000, did it again in 2004, and now they’re going to do it in 2006 and 2008.
The United States of America is a “Representative Republic.” Not a “democracy.”
Democracy = mob rule. Which is why the good little socialists and anarchists at “democracynow.com” chose that name for their website…
The key, of course, is that the Republican-led Congress does fall right in with the beliefs of Trent Lott. In their minds, wouldn’t the nation be better if we could just go back to a Dixiecratish way of life in which post-reconstruction apartheid keeps the black man down? Scratch the thin veneer of a Republican politician or a campaign strategist, and you’ll find a hooded nincompoop.
Me thinks some folks should brush up on some political history before posting…
[quote]Dix·ie·crat (dĭk’sē-krăt’) pronunciation
n.
A member of a dissenting group of Democrats in the South who formed the States’ Rights Party in 1948. answers.com/topic/dixiecrat[/quote]
thesmokinggun.com/archive/dixiecrat1.html
Look closely where the red arrow points. Can you say…‘seperate but equal’ and all that happy horse hockey ?
Oppose the elimination of integration…? Fine group of Southern Democrats…oh yeah…Strom Thurmond in his original days…before his conversion to Barry Goldwater and the path he followed…later.
The very fact that Thurmond “converted” and that the GOP so warmly welcomed him should be evidence in itself. The “Solid South” was so solid because of history, not policy. However, having distanced itself temporily enough from Lincoln, the Republican Party is now attracting the former Dixiecrats in droves – for just such reasons as the actions described in the article I posted.
Even in the early twentieth century, the GOP was pulling this kind of crap, though. When NY governor Al Smith’s attempts at progressive reform seemed to be gaining momentum back in '28 at the culmination of the Gilded Age, how did the Republicans go after him? Raising the issue of “Papism” and racial prejudice against his Irish roots. (That’s not to mention having the great Huey Long assassinated, if only we could prove it!) They brought the same crap up against Kennedy. When they’re not disenfranchising minorities, they’re out there winning the votes of those who think we should!
Of course, we shouldn’t forget how they bolstered support from bigots prior to the 2004 election: highly publicized anti-Gay marriage campaigns. Same old same old.
[quote=“TainanCowboy”]Me thinks some folks should brush up on some political history before posting…
[quote]Dix·ie·crat (dĭk’sē-krăt’) pronunciation
n.
A member of a dissenting group of Democrats in the South who formed the States’ Rights Party in 1948. answers.com/topic/dixiecrat[/quote]
thesmokinggun.com/archive/dixiecrat1.html
Look closely where the red arrow points. Can you say…‘separate but equal’ and all that happy horse hockey ?
Oppose the elimination of integration…? Fine group of Southern Democrats…oh yeah…Strom Thurmond in his original days…before his conversion to Barry Goldwater and the path he followed…later.
At the risk of , what the Democrats did, with respect to race, before the mid 60s has little bearing on what they stand for today. The Dixiecrats fled to the GOP…but then you knew that.
That seems analogous to suggesting that Stalin is ok because he’s not Hitler. (Or is it the other way? Whatever.)
If I were to answer I’d say it doesn’t even out because we (American voters), have had our voting process corrupted. The foundation of our republic is attacked (from two sides). They win, we lose.
Fuck no, it doesn’t even out.
Republicans and Democrats win non-competitive races and the American voters lose. Our democratic system is being systematicly manipulated by two groups of power-hungry thugs and you wonder if it “evens out?” Seriously? Which side are you on? (This isn’t addressed just to jd, but to all.)
Does it make us feel better, knowing the other side of the Duopoly pisses on our voting rights too?
jd does raise a good point though. Anybody who wants to start a scandal in a Democratic stronghold should go see how many registered (and very active) Chicago voters with surnames like Falsetti were born on July, 4 1776, I shit you not–I saw the voter rolls with my own eyes (in 2004). Due to liberal sensitivities I probably shouldn’t mention what party they usually vote. Of course some will still remember how voters with names and birthdays copied off headstones helped LBJ win back in the day.
Bottom line: Democratic Party tactics (vote early and often) rob the public of its right to democratic representation every bit as much as Republican Party tactics (don’t let any more of them poor minorities vote than you have to). The two parties win and the fight for representation instead of king-making takes a setback. The fact that we Americans continue supporting these monsters (with our votes and/or blather on message boards) instead of taking our government back speaks volumes about us all.
[quote]An extension of the Voting Rights Act is running into some of the same objections in the Senate that it faces in the House, where the bill was pulled from the floor schedule last week after rank-and-file Republicans rebelled against their leadership.
Southern Senate conservatives are raising concerns about reauthorizing Section 5 of the law, which requires jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to pre-clear voting-law changes with the Justice Department. Some Southerners argue that the requirement is unnecessarily onerous and that their states should not be singled out in perpetuity.
“Our part of the country, no matter how good we do, we’re going to be treated differently than the rest of the country,” said Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.).[/quote]
Hmm, this is interesting. Let me get this straight, Republicans in historically racist states are complaining about having voting registration changes first go through the courts before they are implemented?
Is that about right?
:raspberry:
Oh and BTW,
[quote] Many of the law’s provisions are permanent, but several are due to expire next year. Democrats and some centrist Republicans are eager to win reauthorization of those provisions before GOP term limits force Sensenbrenner to hand his gavel to a more conservative lawmaker.[/quote]
So please, no more VOTING RIGHTS ACT TO BE DENIED!!! ARRRGHHHH!!!
[quote=“Chris”][quote=“TainanCowboy”]Me thinks some folks should brush up on some political history before posting…
[quote]Dix·ie·crat (dĭk’sē-krăt’) pronunciation
n.
A member of a dissenting group of Democrats in the South who formed the States’ Rights Party in 1948. answers.com/topic/dixiecrat[/quote]
thesmokinggun.com/archive/dixiecrat1.html
Look closely where the red arrow points. Can you say…‘separate but equal’ and all that happy horse hockey ?
Oppose the elimination of integration…? Fine group of Southern Democrats…oh yeah…Strom Thurmond in his original days…before his conversion to Barry Goldwater and the path he followed…later.
At the risk of , what the Democrats did, with respect to race, before the mid 60s has little bearing on what they stand for today. The Dixiecrats fled to the GOP…but then you knew that.
OK, that horse ain’t gettin’ up…[/quote]Chris -
Nice try. Strom Thurmond changed to a Goldwater supporter. The Dixiecrats were Southern Democrats. They favored segration and blacks being kept seperate from whites. That was the Democratic party line in the south. Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act.
Flog that.
Byrd repudiated the Klan, saying that joining the Klan his “greatest mistake.” The NAACP considers Byrd an ally in the Senate, giving him a 100% rating on their issues. Perhaps in the future, there will be people who will take the bold step of repudiating their involvement with the Republicans.
With “great” Republicans like David Dukkke and skinhead-lover Hal Turner, I’m sure that the Republicans will continue to do everything they can to keep blacks from being allowed to vote. Republicans love to play the race card, starting in recent years from the Willie Horton ads and continuing through the Rovian efforts to paint fellow GOPster John McCain as the parent of a “mixed-race love child” – apparently a reference to his adopted Bangladeshi baby.
And you believe him? Say, mofangongren, I’ve goot some beautiful land down in Florida that I can sell to you for a good price… special price, just for you…
, what the Democrats did, with respect to race, before the mid 60s has little bearing on what they stand for today. The Dixiecrats fled to the GOP…but then you knew that.
Say, mofangongren, I’ve goot some beautiful land down in Florida that I can sell to you for a good price… special price, just for you… 